Wednesday, September 21, 2011

A Brief Personal History of Organized Sports Part 1: Karate

For the first time in years, I have
entered a sports league. It isn't that I have anything against
organized sports, per se, it's simply that, in a long and sordid
history with them, I've never been any good. Don't get me wrong, I
love playing games. Street hockey and backyard baseball were awesome
growing up, and if you challenged me to a game of croquette or beach
volleyball, I'd be all over that. Once something gets organized, it
generally went down hill for me. They say that what's most important
about sports is having fun. This statement was probably made by
someone like Babe Ruth or Harry Potter, or someone else that never
lost at their selected sport. Winning is fun, no one can argue
against that. Over the span of my life, I've rarely won at organized
sports. I think it might be easiest if I break this post up into the
different sport's I've attempted.

I distinctly remember my first attempt
at “organized” karate. Having grown up with an Okinawan
grandmother, I figured I was a shoe-in for karate. At 5 ½ My mother
enrolled 3 older siblings and myself in a karate studio (dojo?) It
was awesome. Despite the teacher (master?) yelling incomprehensible
things to an inattentive 5 year old, I was having a blast. I was
determined to kick the hardest and to run the fastest. My dreams were
quickly shattered. The downward spiral probably began with my attempt
to become a yellow belt. I loved my karate uniform (Gi?) But I
noticed that the only people that had a white belt were people that
had enrolled after me.

Decidedly, I needed some color in my
awesome ninja attire. The problem was, this required me to memorize a
routine that was decidedly more difficult than actions like “kick”
or “yell High YA!” There was a loophole, one that I had every
intention to exploit. You did your routine, side by side with two
other students. I strategically took my place in between the two
others and used what I assumed to be my peripheral vision, but turned
out to just be full head turns instead, to watch and follow their
every move to the T. After a grueling 2 ½ minutes the routine was
over. I was singled out by our master(?). Like I said before, I
didn't comprehend much of what he said (not because he had a heavy
asian accent or anything, he was about as white as they got.) I was
hopeful, but I did not receive my yellow belt.

Shortly after this incident came the
one that ended my career in karate. In the midst of doing exercises
that had nothing to do with breaking bricks with our fists or walking
on glass, my body had decided that enough was enough. As I stared
into the confused face of my training partner, I unloaded the
contents of my guts right there on the floor. I left that building
crying in the arms of my mother, never to return again.

This was one of my first, but
certainly not last attempts at succeeding in organized sports. The
longest bought came in the form of baseball, a sport loved by my
entire family, of which I had little skill in, even after roughly 6
years of playing.